Related Stories

Next year’s return of Rock The Park and its sibling Gone Country music fest to mid-July lands it on the same weekend as the 2015 Home County Music & Art Festival — and that’s a surprise to the folks.

“It would have been nice to have some planning. It would have been nice if the Rock The Park folks contacted us to tell us what they’re doing,” Bernie Gilmore, chair of the Home County Folk League, which organizes the Victoria Park fest, said Monday.

Gone Country, with U.S. stars Little Big Town as one headliner, goes at Harris Park July 15-16, organizers said Monday. Rock The Park follows at Harris Park on July 17-18.

Home County goes at Victoria Park July 17-19.

Some fans would choose one fest or the other, but others might go from park to park on the overlapping days, Gilmore said.

“Our audiences are pretty different . . . maybe they can do both,” he said.

The announcement on Monday that there would be two days of Gone Country has been met with scores of phone calls and positive comments on social media, said Jones Entertainment Group president Brad Jones.

“Our first five Rock The Parks were this weekend, so we’re just going back to our original weekend,” Jones said.

The first edition of Gone Country had a one-day bill headlined by U.S. star Darius Rucker and pulled 11,000 fans to a jammed Harris Park on July 23. Three days of rock followed.

“With selling out our Gone Country event this past summer with over 11,000 fans, we wanted to grow this for next summer and give those country fans more,” Jones said.

Little Big Town headlines on July 16, when Joe Nichols and Chad Brownlee are also appearing. Canadian star Brownlee just played the Rockin Wheel fest at Mt. Brydges, which also added a country night this year.

Dustin Lynch and Jess Moskaluke play on July 15, with more acts TBA on both days.

Acts booked for the mid-July 2015 fest were available on those dates, Jones said.

The Jones Entertainment Group devised and runs Rock The Park as a fundraiser for London-based Bethanys Hope Foundation, which battles a deadly degenerative disease known as MLD.

“This past year was a very special one for us as we were able to crack $2 million (in the total) amount raised for Bethanys Hope Foundation,” Jones said of money raised over the first 11 editions of the fest.

Meanwhile, it’s not the first time there’s been a crowded festival weekend here in July.

In 2003, the old Bluesfest London — tied to a switch by its then-partner in Windsor — moved its weekend to overlap with that year’s Home County.

The folk festival objected when Bluesfest wanted to use Harris Park. Bluesfest went to the Bellamere market site for 2003. Later, Bluefest moved to a temporary site on a parking lot at King and Clarence Sts. while continuing to overlap Home County for a few more years.

During that time, there were urban myths starring British blues rockers who would arrive at Victoria Park and began to unload at the Kiwanis bandshell before being directed a few blocks south on Clarence to the Bluesfest stage.

The change in Rock The Park from its original dates to a later July weekend had been made a few years ago to accommodate plans for an addition weekend at Sarnia’s Bayfest, Jones said. Bayfest later went on hiatus.

The 2015 Rock The Park fest trims the rock nights from three to two.

“We’ll make lemonade,” Home County’s artistic director Darin Addison said Monday of the 2015 overlap.

Addison praised Rock The Park for its success in supporting a great cause.

It may be some fans in London for Rock The Park “will wander over” to Victoria Park next July for Home County, he said.